Found deviantART Haiku, for Wintermute

Photo by Hannah Havoc
When you come back,
love her like you used to... it's OK...
...and she deserves it.

Type, Type, Send

Type, Type, Send

We speak a language of thumbs
communicated into translators of T9
like UN ambassadors
transliterating the codes of our home countries
into global policy
each carrying more weight than
the digital characters they encapsulate

type, type, send
type, type, send

a new message in the inbox
read at 55 miles per hour
or between classes
or minutes before deadline

the poets of this language
are the ones who choose to punctuate
the oft-overlooked colloquialisms
of “R U BIZY 2NIGHT”
into the proper grammatical structure

proper spelling still matters somewhere
AIM has the niche of brevity
with its lowbrow dialect
of “LOL”, “ROTFL” and “OMFG” —
bearing your digital STDs,
keep your emoticons from infecting our thumbs

the debate is as old as English
when Norman French filled manors with "beef" and "veal"
while fallen Cynings tended the cattle and sheep outside
the high class thumb the seven keys for “t-h-r-o-u-g-h”
while the uninspired ignorant masses settle for “t-h-r-u”

if the late Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — or MLK —
spoke today
the phrase, broadcasted into the phones of the crowd
would be that we are judged
by the content of our communications
type, type, send
type, type, send

our thumbs define us
much to the jealousy of our other eight digits
the exasperated index
the vainglorious bird
the self-important ring
and the naïve, wayward pinkie
that secretly plots and schemes
in hopes that an errant firecracker
or angry car door
will leave it as the sole articulator
the last tool to accuse in courtrooms
or scratch behind one’s ears

but none of the non-opposables
even united like a superhero foursome
can counter the voice of the thumb
they merely hold our phones like beds
while the outcast digit
the extremity intentionally uninvited to parties
articulates in an erotic tryst with keys
like lovers beneath dark sheets
sending our hopes and dreams to phones elsewhere

they, jealous and embittered
lean tightly against the battery
like guests next door in a seedy hotel
wondering what passions
can be seen on the other side
celibates envious that others can love so freely
forever uncertain how T9
rises from foreplay to climax to afterglow
between spent thumbs and their beloved keys

Ashley Haiku

Warm summer evenings,
Jazz, poetic embraces
leave a gentle dawn

Love Like a Scar

Betwixt my eyebrows
a three-second mistake
of my 6-year-old self
dug a pox mark divot
forever into flesh
the reminds me daily
in the reflection of mirror,
glass frame and inverted spoon
how a reckless moment
marked me months and miles
after context collapsed into confusion
and left me with a scar that pulls me back into
that moment with increasing vividness
so that the facts
enrich and embellish themselves
a vibrant fiction
worthy of Vonnegut or Tolstoy or Tolkien

she scars memory in the same fashion
breaking my heart
whenever her image emerges from picture frames
or she slips into my peripheral
to hang on every unsaid word
I refuse to speak
knowing the desperation
with which she longs to hear them
I revel in sadistically parrying
her stabs toward my affections
and hate myself for it
the burning pleasure that lurks in abusing power
seeped beneath skin in shameful celebration
best elucidated in how children kill small animals
then tearfully confess to parents hours later
part of me wants to crush her beneath my boot heel
while the other half of me wants to save her from it
unreconciled, the two factions vie for control
of my unsatisfied electorate
whose ever-changing pulse pollsters calculate

I've longed a decade
for a lover beholden to my whims
whose loyalty could dance on my fingertips
and here, she twirls,
a paper doll
I want the conviction of her sincerity
the fire of her resistance
to burn my palms with any attempt to hold fast
she yearns for a master
but I require no puppet
I left my toys in a box
when I chose to play with words
she finds new boys daily
who seek the newest shiny thing
to touch and prod and jiggle
until it breaks or they get bored
I learned too quick
grew up too fast
calculating the physics of matter
while most boys were adding lips to lips
I solved her equation long before I met her
and now want new math
to entice my interests
she bears potential to spend my head like a top
but refuses to try
misbelieving I am some dull creature
like those she's met before

I want to want to love her
free from scars or fictions
let her slip into my mind
as easily as she slips into bed
when I'm too drunk, too tired
or too uninterested to resist
I won't share the parts of me she wants
because she hasn't earned them
she can't invite the army of fingers or
heavy artillery of tongue
or invasion of cock
if my mind generally refuses
to fall for an ambush
I’ve read Sun Tzu too many times
to acquiesce to her bait
or be drawn into the conflict
from which I know there is no swift retreat

I should erect a Great Wall between us
hold back her barbarian mess
stand guard all along the watchtower
and prevent her flanking maneuvers
something in me
longs for a pitched battle
a contest of wits
strategies, forces, and tactics
the conflict between worthy adversaries
a sparring match
a fencing gambit
a card game with control of an empire on the line
because so few past lovers
offered challenge beyond the moment

I pull back too often
shelter in my warm deceptions
hold back from feeling
the fall of water
the touch of soil
the warmth of fire
the caress of wind
and the shutter when nature shatters shelter
too afraid of the stain
I resist hearing the sound of rain
just grab my gun
and bring in the cat
before she gets close enough to harm me
I stand mome with mimsy sword in hand
against the fabled frumious Jabberwock
with jaws that bite and claws that catch

the men who know me
just want me to get laid
“it’s just one more pussy vacation
to notch on the headboard”
but I’ve been down this road
chipped so beaverly into the wood
that it fears collapse if I orgasm again
and new ports match old harbors
I don’t care where I drop anchor
because no storm yet has sunk me
she’s merely a summer squall
shimmying the jibs and fluttering books on deck
but the crew is sleeping drunk down below
oblivious to the winds stirring the soup outside
she wants to swamp the boat
but her crests fall below the gunwale

I should sleep through her winds and waves
remember her as a crossed-off calendar date
but she scarred me in a moment
somehow, somewhere, some when
so that my fiction-focused protagonist
fills in the potentials of how and why
I’m unable to withdraw my rearguard
trapped Slaughterhouse-style
on her Vietnamese hillocks
Tễt transfigures into Groundhog Day
whenever she walks into my room

this divot forged a new history
once the flesh that filled it
departed my skin for an undiscovered country
but its secession stares back
a perpetual absent passenger reminding me
how adults can be broken
by their own childish naïveté
reminded with every wayward glance
every new “hello”
and every “good to see you again”
how she marked me the same
although the evidence lurks beneath skin
I can still see her with these eyes
and gritted teeth
I yearn for a plastic surgeon who can fix me
restore me to the way I should be
before I met her
made the mistake of loving her for a moment
longer than I should have
but enough to mark me with the reminder
of how the absence of her
will ride shotgun into my last decade
separated only when my final campfire
frees my visage from this flesh frame
and converts Earthbound skin and bone
into the ash of a million gray angels

She Only Loves Me When The Bars Close

she only loves me when the bars close
and no one else is willing to take her home
spilling drama Ibsen would envy
about this girl or that boy
who said or did something
we must deal with right away
even though the guilty parties
aren’t around to argue the contrary

she comes in the back door
as my roommates sleep oblivious to the impending Armageddon
soon to destroy us all
fights past all my contradictions
to slip into my satin sheets
and call me to bed
no matter whatever late-night duties require my attention
I just want to sleep
without a stranger’s tongue in my mouth
drift off to sleep alone and contented in my loneliness
without her arms wrapping envious tendrils around me
desperate for my attentions, tongue or cock
to remind her she’s human and wanted

I’ve lived my days without a woman
to make me feel like a man
just give me a soft pillow
and dreams of past lovers
or memories of travels
or fictional visions of potential futures
and I drift into dreamland
with a smile until dawn
but she calls me to bed
to wrap myself around her
hold her like all the lovers she’s left behind
I am not them
I am more than a body
with a hungry organ seeking a cathedral
to play my music in
while the seats sit empty of religious devotees
I don’t need the fictions
that tonight is the night two twin souls find each other
one drunk on whiskey
the other loaded up with gin
making long island iced tea love
ripe with thick cigarette smoke on our breath
to stink the air beneath the sheets

she slips off her clothes
throws her panties to floor
as if the only key I needed to her moistness
was the lack of a cotton barrier

my hips learned the motions
the thrust and throb of hips
from wise women who could have taught
a hundred thousand men
the way to love properly
I have been a student of masters
who still make my head spin
years after they taught me how to play

one who showed me how a tongue can speak verse
by the way it flicks and glides across a clit
as if poetry was not the sound of words
but their movement in space
another who wanted to fuck everywhere but the bed
finding the best place of all
was an overloaded dryer
bouncing off-balance
while the buzzer went off every 15 minutes for hours
another who taught me the way to find perfect rhythm
is to pretend you’re a jazz trio
accompanying a polka band
while the titanic sinks

loving a woman with hips and skins
takes intention and concentration
but their arts are wasted when you are, too

she calls for lips
pops a pill to ease herself
pulls close my muscles
and wants the better parts of me
to fill her
but when the competition is eighty proof
I see no reason to trespass on her intoxication
I want to love her
but her stories change too fast to trust

she stretches her limbs
rubs below my belt
to awaken what she thinks she wants
and opens her anime eyes to my otaku desires
but I’ve seen the way this ends
and no one in Neo-Tokyo lives to tell the tale
I am more than her cartoon perfect playmate
I’ve seen her pull the football out from her Charlie Browns
only she’s left unsatisfied and oblivious
while they go off to find
little red-haired girls to love

she treats her pussy like a daytrip destination
instead of somewhere one wants to live
pay a mortgage,
build a white-picket fence
and eventually retire
we’ve all gotten postcards
from those who’ve been there before
and the mystery has become a cheap tourist trap
we only visit for the novelty
of saying we’ve been there, done that

she spreads her legs
to spill honey
but she’s only catching flies
so I zip mine up
and sleep on the couch
by myself at least I’m with someone who loves me
for what I dream of
not what I dangle between my lonely thighs

she only loves me when the bars close
only calls after 2 a.m.
and I can tell her time zone
by checking the clock
each message begins with slurs
about missing me with extra “s”s
and how much she hates me for not calling back by three
but how much she loves me, but hates me, but loves me
whatever my name is tonight

she curses my lovers
points at their photos and says they’ll never love me again
but that’s not why I keep them
they loved me once
and that’s all I have in the end
she hates my wall-hanging lovers
because she hasn’t been one of them

she doesn’t remember
the night I let go of these rules
slipped part of me into her
and watched her writhe with joy
as her hips shook uncontrollably over and over and over
she asked me the next morning if we fucked
they way you’d ask someone
if they’d read a news story
or seen a movie
or cleaned the rain gutters last year
if she can’t remember
why remind her

I’ve fucked for fun
and for curiosity
but not to be forgotten
I don’t need any more stamps in my passport
and I’ve visited countries like hers before

she only loves me when the bars close
but I don’t serve what she’s drinking
I only save her a barstool
pour water and soda until she’s so drunk on her own vintage
that she doesn’t know what year it is
drifts off to sleep in my arms
only then is she finally honest enough
for me to trust her
only unconscious, still and silent
do I believe what she has to say
only then
when she can’t contradict me a thousand ways
I whisper what she wants to hear

She Only Loves Me When the Bars Close

I've been writing poetry for nearly a decade and I generally stay away from graphic sexual content or references; I think it's part of my conservative childhood. I avoid words that directly reference sex, but my relationship with the girl in this poem seems to revolve around sex exclusively despite my attempts to make it more meaningful.
As such, I include these references in the poem for dramatic effect.

--Contains sexual content and strong language--

She Only Loves Me When the Bars Close
Of Ashley Wintermute

she only loves me when the bars close
and no one else is willing to take her home
spilling drama Ibsen would envy
about this girl or that boy
who said or did something
we must deal with right away
even though the guilty parties
aren’t around to argue the contrary

she comes in the back door
as my roommates sleep oblivious to the impending Armageddon
soon to destroy us all
fights past all my contradictions
to slip into my satin sheets
and call me to bed
no matter whatever late-night duties require my attention
I just want to sleep
without a stranger’s tongue in my mouth
drift off to sleep alone and contented in my loneliness
without her arms wrapping envious tendrils around me
desperate for my attentions, tongue or cock
to remind her she’s human and wanted

I’ve lived my days without a woman
to make me feel like a man
just give me a soft pillow
and dreams of past lovers
or memories of travels
or fictional visions of potential futures
and I drift into dreamland
with a smile until dawn
but she calls me to bed
to wrap myself around her
hold her like all the lovers she’s left behind
I am not them
I am more than a body
with a hungry organ seeking a cathedral
to play my music in
while the seats sit empty of religious devotees
I don’t need the fictions
that tonight is the night two twin souls find each other
one drunk on whiskey
the other loaded up with gin
making long island iced tea love
ripe with thick cigarette smoke on our breath
to stink the air beneath the sheets

she slips off her clothes
throws her panties to floor
as if the only key I needed to her moistness
was the lack of a cotton barrier

my hips learned the motions
the thrust and throb of hips
from wise women who could have taught
a hundred thousand men
the way to love properly
I have been a student of masters
who still make my head spin
years after they taught me how to play

one who showed me how a tongue can speak verse
by the way it flicks and glides across a clit
as if poetry was not the sound of words
but their movement in space
another who wanted to fuck everywhere but the bed
finding the best place of all
was an overloaded dryer
bouncing off-balance
while the buzzer went off every 15 minutes for hours
another who taught me the way to find perfect rhythm
is to pretend you’re a jazz trio
accompanying a polka band
while the titanic sinks

loving a woman with hips and skins
takes intention and concentration
but their arts are wasted when you are, too

she calls for lips
pops a pill to ease herself
pulls close my muscles
and wants the better parts of me
to fill her
but when the competition is eighty proof
I see no reason to trespass on her intoxication
I want to love her
but her stories change too fast to trust

she stretches her limbs
rubs below my belt
to awaken what she thinks she wants
and opens her anime eyes to my otaku desires
but I’ve seen the way this ends
and no one in Neo-Tokyo lives to tell the tale
I am more than her cartoon perfect playmate
I’ve seen her pull the football out from her Charlie Browns
only she’s left unsatisfied and oblivious
while they go off to find
little red-haired girls to love

she treats her pussy like a daytrip destination
instead of somewhere one wants to live
pay a mortgage,
build a white-picket fence
and eventually retire
we’ve all gotten postcards
from those who’ve been there before
and the mystery has become a cheap tourist trap
we only visit for the novelty
of saying we’ve been there, done that

she spreads her legs
to spill honey
but she’s only catching flies
so I zip mine up
and sleep on the couch
by myself at least I’m with someone who loves me
for what I dream of
not what I dangle between my lonely thighs

she only loves me when the bars close
only calls after 2 a.m.
and I can tell her time zone
by checking the clock
each message begins with slurs
about missing me with extra “s”s
and how much she hates me for not calling back by three
but how much she loves me, but hates me, but loves me
whatever my name is tonight

she curses my lovers
points at their photos and says they’ll never love me again
but that’s not why I keep them
they loved me once
and that’s all I have in the end
she hates my wall-hanging lovers
because she hasn’t been one of them

she doesn’t remember
the night I let go of these rules
slipped part of me into her
and watched her writhe with joy
as her hips shook uncontrollably over and over and over
she asked me the next morning if we fucked
they way you’d ask someone
if they’d read a news story
or seen a movie
or cleaned the rain gutters last year
if she can’t remember
why remind her

I’ve fucked for fun
and for curiosity
but not to be forgotten
I don’t need any more stamps in my passport
and I’ve visited countries like hers before

she only loves me when the bars close
but I don’t serve what she’s drinking
I only save her a barstool
pour water and soda until she’s so drunk on her own vintage
that she doesn’t know what time it is
drifts off to sleep in my arms
only then is she finally honest enough
for me to trust her
only unconscious, still and silent
do I believe what she has to say
only then
when she can’t contradict me a thousand ways
I whisper what she wants to hear

Hunting UFOs

she asks me just to hold her and
a bear I become
wrapping these lithe arms
around her smallness
as if to keep out the cold

she stands five feet one
90 pounds when soaking wet
and I feel like her father might
if we were related by blood
but she’s already born a daughter and
I’m the one without family

she just asks me to hold her
and we lean against the car door stargazing
she believes the stars are UFOs
hiding between clumps of clouds
rolling hazily eastward
I tell her she’s drunk and silly
she swears she’s not
three beers and the way she slurs “swear”
prove my point, but I let it go

she just wants to be held
I do my duty:
hold fast and believe her
I spill stories of Saturnites
playing tag with satellites
creating new constellations
for attendant astronauts and
the Earthlings gazing skyward
watching secrets disappear with stars
behind the clouds

in the meandering,
minute hands gain momentum
reverse themselves and recycle
as her Venusians dogfight in the darkness
dodging glittering C-beams
near the Tannhäuser Gate
she drifts away in my arms
for the first night’s sleep in years

this champagne shoulder romance
is what we dream of before we learn better
the way we’re taught as teenagers
to shimmer through our glass selves
pour the vintage that remains
serve ourselves brimming with what-could-bes

in another life
we’d calculate love in the metrics of these moments
measure twice, cut once
erect a card house biography
of children and picket fences

in another life, perhaps, but
she and I took more scenic routes
with more complicated cartography and
find ourselves in the here and now

we choose roads to travel and
no one remembers the path back
it’s a long way down and
we don’t have time to rise again

so I hold her, like she asks
let the rhythm of voice more than words
soothe her into neverland dreamscapes
anything poetic at this hour,
in her state
drops its grammatical wings,
loses its rhythmic luster,
weaves through the haze and
drips through whatever color sky she’s imagining
confusing and conflating with her subconscious
so that she can’t decipher
her words from mine

if my whispers
emerge from the lips of caterpillars, centaurs
or long-dead relatives
and she smiles in her sleep
then I abdicate them to her kingdoms
retire into verbal amnesia and
hunt more words to blanket her body

she wakes with warnings
that she can’t get used to this
can’t let herself slip and fall into me
my warm limbs lacking intention
soft fingertips content on hands and hips
without delving beneath elastic
or diving into moist places
she can’t afford to fall into me
the tumble could be too deep
to find her way out again

she doesn’t want this husk of a man
I tell her, with all my broken parts
sheltering secrets and enigmas
behind verbose shrouds so
I relaunch us skyward
lose touch with again with this sudden gravity
stretch languid limbs into ether
hold her like the last lungful of oxygen and
return to stories in the stars

we tumble through jump gates
scattering ourselves into stardust
sightsee nebulas in colors
unimagined by even science fiction writers
we become skywalkers
making first contact with
whatever fantasies I can conjure
dropping through the exosphere like angels
on worlds that will be long extinct
before the rest of our race follows us here
we moonwalk above Endor
among flocks of creatures
that ride alongside like dolphins
surf stormfronts in gas giants
that could swallow Earth whole
play leapfrog on asteroids so light
we only weigh a fraction of an ounce
all the while painting word pictures
to describe everything that catches our eyes
she still swears UFOs are chasing us
so she asks me to not let her go
so I do my duty:
hold fast and believe her

even with all our words
we don’t talk about the elephant in the back seat
the night I wasn’t there to hold her
the night she wishes she could delete from the calendar
and remember only as a never-was
transform into corporeal fog
but tangibility bleeds his face through her eyelids
leaves greedy fingerprints
on the crime scene of her body
so she drinks to forget
drinks to sleep without dreams
or the need for pills
to prevent nightmares
of hot breath on resistant skin
fingernails clawing into her bones
leaving scars on the marrow

he inhabits all the shadows
in the dark corners of the Earth
so she longs to sail among stars
far above all his hiding places
where she can always see the sun
dance on the rooftops of clouds
spread her arms wide and glitter as starlight
though she mistakes them still for UFOs
even though I can see through the haze tonight
cast eyes upward on what she wants to be
there’s no point in correcting her
because she chooses to be earthbound tonight
now, she just wants to be held
so I do my duty:
believe her
and hold fast

Now at Kudos

So I've been the new managing editor of Kudos for 14 days.

My first two issues went smoothly, the first one getting out about three hours before deadline, the latest one about five hours. My goal is to have each week's issue out and done by Friday afternoon with last-minute clean-up on Monday, before posting stories to the Web site. The more time I can not be in a chair in a newsroom and out in the field, the better the issues become.

I'm also working with Sarrah Wile, Ashley Wintermute and Alice Kuhn to get them to shoot photos. They get a photo credit for the shot and their portfolio, I get a great photo, and the readers get a new view on the story.

I wasn't really prepared for the volume of interest, in comparison to what I did at the Sedona Red Rock News' The Scene. There, we were always fighting to get copy in and always had a shitstorm when doing a cover, because our editor would book covers before we started working on the thing, and we'd be left with how to make a 3x5 web photo fill a 9x9 inch space in two hours. We ran a lot of crap photos on the cover.

But everyone wants to be in Kudos. With 34,000 readers, I can't blame them. We are everywhere and there's a shit-ton of space to fill, so the thing is jam-packed with stories and press releases.

I'm trying to get in all the art we receive because that's what I like to see. At least one photo per page, otherwise, why read the page?

I do like being "the Kudos guy." Power corrupts so sweetly. I am trying to get everything in that we receive, but sometimes, two crystal bowl/digeridoo concerts in a week is simply one too many. I can accept the New Agey nature of Sedona, but just because a person is enlightened, doesn't mean the rest of the ... cares. Nor does it mean they want to pay $400 for an evening to have you tell them you are. People want to be entertained, not lectured to. If your event costs $400, buy an ad.

New headshot by Ashley Wintermute

Photo by Ashley Wintermute, one of my favorite portraits by one of my favorite photographers.